Investment will accelerate Afero’s next stage of growth and extend its platform to connect and secure everything
Crosspoint Capital Partners (“Crosspoint Capital”), a private equity firm focused on the cybersecurity, privacy and infrastructure software markets, announced that it led a $50 million Series C investment in Afero (the “Company”), a leading provider of turnkey Internet of Things (“IoT”) Platform as a Service (“Paas”) solutions that bring secure connectivity to IoT devices. The Home Depot also participated in the investment round in Afero; terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
With an increase in demand for connected devices among consumers, retailers, and manufacturers, Afero’s cutting-edge platform quickly enables secure device connectivity from manufacturing (“device birth”) to consumer use. The Company’s software enables secure communication across devices such as all types of smart home products ranging from light bulbs to fans, to connected thermostats. The platform also provides secure cloud communication between the device and Afero’s hosted cloud services.
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“We’re excited to support Afero at a critical point in the Company’s growth given the profound market demand for connected devices,” said Dr. Hugh Thompson, Managing Partner of Crosspoint Capital. “Repurposing and reducing traditional operating systems such as Linux is not a viable path to support the wide range of IoT devices that consumers and businesses want to buy. Afero offers a purpose-built end-to-end platform that allows developers to quickly and elegantly deploy connectivity, cloud-based management and mobile app control with security at the core of their architecture. Crosspoint is thrilled to partner with the Afero team who have decades of proven execution in integrating usability, security and connectivity into a diverse set of devices.”
The IoT market is expected to grow to $1.6 trillion by 2025 according to Statista, as there is an insatiable desire to connect all consumer and enterprise devices. This rapidly growing connectivity of IoT devices has resulted in increasing incidents of high-profile exploitation of these devices, underscoring the need for Afero’s solutions. As part of the investment, Dr. Hugh Thompson will join Afero’s Board of Directors as the Company looks to shape the security of connected devices.
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“Since 2014, Afero has enabled consumers and enterprises to better protect the devices they use daily, and we’re eager to extend our offerings across new markets such as logistics and healthcare,” said Joe Britt, Co-Founder and CEO of Afero. “Crosspoint’s expertise will help us seize the massive opportunity in making connected devices safer and easier to use.”
Earlier this year, Afero was the recipient of The Home Depot’s 2021 Innovation Award for its role in enabling The Home Depot to build reliable smart homes with an intuitive platform and easy-to-set-up products.
“The Home Depot’s partnership with Afero has allowed us to provide a reliable smart home solution to our customers,” said Jim Hovis, Senior Vice President – Merchandising, Building Materials at The Home Depot. “We’ve worked closely with Afero to bring new innovations leveraging the Hubspace platform and we look forward to our enhanced partnership.”
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